Science’s truth-claims create a paradox because its destructive products are also true

Evidence

Whatever science, as a paradigm, says is the truth and nothing but the truth (however much certain individual scientists may disagree with this pervasive dictum). Yet, the indispensable and crucial addendum “nothing but the truth” is clearly intended to eliminate the possibility of including with the truth a nontruth, a lie, a deception, a malicious design, which creates for any rational being an insurmountable paradox made patently obvious by the destructiveness of science. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 362

Categorization

• XREF: This paradox echoes the tension in the silence/noise work — the bookish project of accurately describing harm while being unable to disavow the systems producing it. — connects to: The practice of science is distinct from the destructive scientific worldview — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1268; Manufactured scientific doubt was the proving ground for today’s wholesale rejection of truth. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 70